Hatcher's 32. Melton's 28. So Hatcher's older now than Melton will be at the end of the contract. The contracts were very similar (4 years, Hatcher a little more guaranteed, Melton a little more total value), except the Cowboys can escape Melton's after one season if he doesn't work out. Hatcher may be a better player this season, but to me it's irrelevant, since I wouldn't have given him that contract.

They think Cam will be back in time for the season, though. On the other hand, they might as well sign Tebow. I mean, they're obviously abandoning the whole "forward pass" concept at this point. They have literally gotten rid of every WR who caught a pass in 2013. The six on their current roster have five career receptions combined. And basically anyone worth picking up has been signed. Maybe Danario Alexander if you have Magic Health Pills, or Santonio Holmes with Magic Attitude Pills, or maybe Lance Moore? Are they planning to go four deep with rookies?

I haven't seen enough of DeSean Jackson to have a strong opinion, but Danny Amendola on the the current Panthers roster would be the very essence of trivial. You'd be better of trying to get lucky with a mid round pick.

I really do think that a one or two win season is not terribly far fetched for this team. Where are the points going to come from, especially after the nearly inevitable Newton injury that occurs as he tries to single-handedly create an offense?

Well, the Texans have a pretty strong front seven, and have the advantage of playing in a much weaker division than the Panthers, and look at what just happened to them.

Having said that, I think the only way they end up having a 1 or 2 win season is if Newton gets injured. As long as he's healthy, they should be able to score just enough to allow their defense to grind out at least 5 wins.

No they don't. They have Watt, and Cushing who was hurt for most of the year, and a bunch of underwhelming guys. They were much better the year before, and it carried an average offense and a horrific special teams to a 12-4 record, although that was a bit inflated.

Congratulations, you've just undermined your own argument. Going into last season, everyone thought, based on the previous year, that the Texans had a very strong front seven. However, they then failed to perform nearly as well, in spite of having basically the same personnel and not suffering an inordinate amount of injuries. They basically just regressed. Why couldn't the same thing happen to the Panthers?

Go back and read my post. I specifically said: "I don't think a team with as strong a front 7 as Carolina has will be that bad without any injuries." Losing your second-best player in your front seven for more than half the year and your third-best player in Barwin to free-agency isn't a big change? Give me a break.

"Without any injuries", seriously? Has there ever been a team in the history of the NFL that has gone through an entire season without a single injury? I thought we were discussing reality, instead of some hypothetical Panthers dream world.

And as for the Texans, no, I don't really think losing Barwin was a big deal, and as for Cushing, as I just said, injuries are a part of life in the NFL. You have to expect a few of them. When you have 5 starters on the same side of the ball miss a majority of the season, that's bad injury luck. Just losing a couple of guys, that's nothing (especially when your best player, by far, plays every game, and plays almost as well as he did in his historically great season the year before).

I was talking about injuries in their front 7. And it's not like Carolina didn't have their share of injuries as well in other units of their team.

"And as for the Texans, no, I don't really think losing Barwin was a big deal"
Obviously not, because that would undermine your argument. Not having Barwin and Cushing is not "having basically the same personnel," especially when the players that replaced them noticeably sucked.

You have it backwards. I made the argument, in part, because I don't consider Barwin to be a key player. He's OK, but nothing special. And again, losing 2 moderately valuable players is not an inordinate amount of bad luck. It's actually about what you would expect. Rather, the Texans' defensive decline was mostly the product of simple regression (which Carolina will probably experience some of this year), combined with the offense putting them in many tough situations (which, again, figures to be an issue for the Panthers this year). Plus, as I pointed out back in my original comment, the NFC South is much tougher than the AFC South.

No reason not to pick up Santonio considering what they have left on their roster. They're still going to have to draft multiple receivers. Cam's going to discover what it was like being a Jets QB the past two seasons.

Cam Newton didn't depend on Smith nearly as much this year as last; I think they're just accepting that 2014 isn't going to be a huge passing year with any of their old players. They can still obtain receivers in the draft, and they can still split Olson into the slot or Stewart out wide.

It isn't like any Panthers receiver not named Steve Smith has been good in the Cam era. And Smith is obviously declining. In a vacuum, wasn't this the right year to let him go?

I don't think any one decision Carolina has made regarding their wide receivers is questionable on its own, but taken together it's led to their team's current state, although at least they've signed Cotchery now.

Exactly. Every individual decision, taken in a vacuum, makes some sense. "Steve Smith is in his age-related decline phase and is too expensive to keep for what he provides on the field"; "Brandon LaFell has had several years to develop and hasn't shown anything significant"; "Domenick Hixon has never been able to get through a season uninjured despite his potential"; and "Ted Ginn Jr. is a good return man but has only shown viable receiving skills last year and only in a limited capacity" are all valid decisions independent of one another. The problem is that in the aggregate, they're left with having to restock the entire WR position through the draft and through free agency. Then they made the additional decision to let most of the desirable free agent WRs sign with other teams. I've always liked Cotchery, and he's a useful guy to have on the team, but he's a guy who you fill out the back end of your receiving corps with to give you that steady #3 or #4 guy, not be the best one on the team.

Moreover, their good 2013 season suggests that they aren't likely to get a true #1 dropping to them in the first round of the draft unless they trade up (and with their secondary issues, that might not be the best move anyway). If you can't have a guy like Calvin Johnson (or vintage Steve Smith) to carry the rest of the receiving corps, you need to make up for it with depth so you end up with a #2-caliber guy being covered by somebody's fourth-best cornerback. Unless they pull a dramatically brilliant move, I see 8-8 in their future given their issues at receiver and DB.

Jared Allen goes to the Seahawks. I've never been anti-Seahawks, but now I'm fully in the mode I was when Birk was with the Ravens. I'd be very happy to see a great pro and Viking get a championship elsewhere.

There's a chance that Seattle's defense will be better, which is kind of intimidating to consider.

The guy, in his time with the Vikings, has been almost literally everything you'd want to see in a very highly paid NFL player. Terrifically productive, without being one-dimensional. Plays extremely hard. Accountable, and not given to making excuses. No off the field problems. Represents his employer extremely well. Provides leadership and helps promote an environment which is attractive to other free agents. The guy's been great, and I'd now love to see the Seahawks repeat.

I don't know about better in DVOA, but I doubt they'll be better in VOA or points allowed. Their offensive slate looks to be much better than last year, going up against Dallas, Green Bay, Denver, San Diego and Philadelphia; they only faced two top-12 offenses last year outside of SF. I don't think it's a coincidence that the three most memorable defenses in the DVOA era all happened to luck into very poor offensive schedules.

Allen's probably an upgrade over Clemons but the have lost some other guys: Bryant, Browner, McDonald, Thurmond. They're also unlikely to stay as healthy as they did on defense last year, they were only missing Rice from their starting roster when the Superbowl rolled around. (I know Seattle fans, you were missing some O-linemen during parts of the regular season and only got one game out of Harvin but I don't know how much you can expect out of him.)

They'll need to find some rookies or develop some of their young guys to replace the rotational players they lost on defense if they're to improve.

I don't really expect them to have such a deep rotation at DL this year. I don't think giving everyone 16% more snaps and going only 6-deep will impact them that much (this assumes a player from either this year's or last year's rookie class takes the 6th spot).

Yes and no. Powers and Honey Badger are both short, so Cromartie looks like an upgrade over Powers, superficially. On the other hand, Cromartie is up and down even if you don't think he's on the downside of his career, and Dansby (who led the team in both INTs and pass deflections) is gone again. With no improvement at safety, I'd call this a lateral move.

Steelers sign LB Arthur Moats. He looks more like an OLB in the Steelers' scheme, and he fills the fourth and probably last OLB slot on the depth chart. I wonder if anyone is even going to want Harrison, who showed last year that he's not terribly useful in a Von Miller style rusher/Sam in a 4-3.

Obviously Richardson is intending to flip Cam Newton for a stable of receivers. That will allow him to unleash Joe Webb's obviously-there-but-doesn't-show-up-in-statistics-or-visually-when-watching-him greatness that will lead the Panthers to the Super Bowl.